


to our own devices

by js71, m3owww



Series: dancing alone--you're never alone [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Anarka Couffaine Is Crazy, Gen, High School, Miraculous Team, POV Outsider, Tags May Change, because we dont know how to tag things, or so we tell ourselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28092618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/js71/pseuds/js71, https://archiveofourown.org/users/m3owww/pseuds/m3owww
Summary: It was when Caline brought up the subject of Juleka’s apparent lack of friends--not so much friends as a lack of engagement with them, that things got slightly... odd.“Oh, her friends?” Anarka laughed brightly, in a way that was slightly concerning. “They’re wonderful! Absolutely fantastic, never met a group like 'em. Their parents think they’re troublemakers, but I know the truth. They’re their own family, y'know.”Or the story where Anarka is crazy, Caline is done with her students, there's a fencing war in the courtyard, and Luka really shouldn't be attending his sister's classes, but nobody has stopped him yet.
Relationships: Caline Bustier & Her Students
Series: dancing alone--you're never alone [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030194
Comments: 25
Kudos: 74





	to our own devices

**Author's Note:**

> Jess & Phi -- This chapter references in passing events that occur in the previous instalment of this series, _lycée confusant_. It’s not at all necessary to read that, but... we’d appreciate if you did?

**Luka | Silence**

So, there’s going to be a villain attack in about five seconds.

**Chloé | Antibug**

and how do u know that?

**Nino | Bubbles**

can feel the scorn

**Luka | Silence**

It already happened.

**Mari | Misfortune**

Fuck

**Nath | Evil Art**

felt that one

* * *

Anarka Couffaine was... something. Caline had known about her for a while, which wasn’t unusual for a teacher at her school. The woman’s daughter’s class had a reputation for things, notably never getting split up despite anything, and having a mentality that someone had once defined as “we’re the only ones allowed to kill each other, don’t you touch us”. Caline had to admit, after a month and a half of teaching the group, it was certainly accurate.

Anarka was what Caline expected her to be, but more. She was louder, more in-your-face, and in general, just more. There was no other way of putting it. Anarka was more.

She’d brought Juleka and another boy with her, this one taller than Juleka, with dark hair at the roots and teal-green-blue at the tips, black-painted nails, and earrings. It was quite obvious the two of them were related, and when Caline stepped out into the hallway outside her classroom to fetch Anarka, the boy was drumming on one of the chairs he’d set out for her guests to sit on, Juleka doing the same on her own. It was the most alive Caline had seen the girl, besides the Horrificator video that had caught her staring in delight at the Akuma.

“Anarka?” Caline asked, and the woman startled. The teenagers paused in their music, Juleka shying away, not-so-subtly hiding behind the boy, who glanced up at Caline, looking perfectly serene.

It turned out the boy was called Luka. It also turned out that Anarka could not stay on-subject unless it was about music, her children, or her children’s friends, and that yes, Juleka could come alive for more than ten seconds if her brother got her to play music. While Anarka was on about the price of guitars, Caline entertained herself by watching the two of them use drumsticks to play on the railings. Apparently one of them carried drumsticks around.

It was when Caline brought up the subject of Juleka’s apparent lack of friends--not so much friends as a lack of engagement with them, that things got slightly… odd.

“Oh, her friends?” Anarka laughed brightly, in a way that was slightly concerning. “They’re wonderful! Absolutely fantastic, never met a group like 'em. Their parents think they’re troublemakers, but I know the truth. They’re their own family, y'know.”

No. Caline did not know, but she found herself keeping an eye out for it--along with, something she thought was absurd, but she did it anyway, and that was “giant flying bug-pets”. She didn’t really think that Anarka had seen them, but the woman had been insistent that Caline report her findings if she did see any. The woman couldn’t possibly be that insane, so Caline did find herself turning when she caught a flash of something, but she was yet to see one of the bugs.

It turned out they were. A family, that was. Not that there were giant flying bugs following her students around. Or that their jewellery was magical. Caline didn’t believe that in the slightest; most of her students didn’t even wear jewellery. She did a silent count once, a few days after meeting Anarka, and found a few necklaces, a pair of earrings or three, a nose ring, a glove-bracelet thing, a ring or two, a hair clip, several other bracelets, and one choker.

Plenty of teenagers called each other by nicknames, or by honorifics related to familial terms, but most of the familial ones were more joking, said sparingly. Once Caline started to pay attention, she realized that her students used those terms quite often, and did indeed behave like they were related, at least in certain ways.

They visited each other’s houses--or boat, in Juleka’s case--often enough that Caline ended up creating a spreadsheet on her private email to keep track of it, only to realize she’d gotten invested in her students in a way she usually didn’t. They also entered each other’s space in a pretty casual manner for teenagers, falling against each other and swinging arms around shoulders more than Caline would have expected.

She was learning not to really expect anything from her students. Kim and Alix did not remember when something had been assigned unless it was from the past two days, Max could probably recite the textbooks they used without ever opening them, Sabrina was nearly on the same level as Max, and the rest of them were scattered. Adrien was ahead of the class in most parts, Nino didn’t forget homework but never studied for tests, and unless Nathaniel was drawing something, he was not going to ever be able to pay attention.

Alya’s phone went off constantly, Rose would make up songs in the middle of math, and they all hated Lila, which seemed a bit odd, but it made sense upon realizing that they had the mentality of “if you’re not one of us you are an enemy”, which had two exceptions; Luka and a girl named Kagami who could kick all their asses, as it turned out, in anything that involved fighting. That included video games.

Luka was homeschooled, as was Kagami. It had been unclear how Kagami knew the group for a while until Caline stayed late on the Monday before parent-teacher interviews and ended up watching a few members of the class take part in a fencing lesson. As it turned out, she’d been Adrien’s childhood nemesis in the sport. It was then clear that her class had even less self-preservation than Caline had thought, as they’d been using fencing swords without any protective gear, and had been essentially having a war in the courtyard.

(She had wisely taken a different way out of the building.)

(She had not commented on the bandages Alix had on her bicep the following day, nor the copious amounts of band-aids everybody else had been wearing. She was smarter than that.)

It was a week after the fencing war, the week of parent-teacher interviews, that she’d found them doing yet another stupid thing. Somehow, during lunch, on a day when very few students were in the courtyard--most of them studying or having left to eat elsewhere, the daredevil of a child known as Alix had decided it would be a smart idea to clamber up onto the railing that ran around the second floor. That on its own wasn’t a new development; the school had stopped trying to prevent Caline’s class from walking on the railings like they were balance beams years ago, but it was the first time someone had done it in roller skates.

“What are you doing!” Caline shouted, the classroom door flying open, and Alix didn’t even spare her a glance, jumping from her railing to the one that ran down the stairs. Kim, who of course didn’t seem to find an issue in what his classmate was doing, turned in surprise, mouth opening to ask Caline what she meant, but Caline was focused on Alix, who let out a yelp, arms windmilling, trying to regain her balance. She pitched backward, falling on the railing on her side, and then dropping off the railing, down to the concrete floor, landing with too much noise to be healthy.

“Alix!”

Caline wasn’t a shrieker. But she shrieked the girl’s name, lurching to a stop, hands gripping the railing as she leaned forwards in horror, feeling sick. She barely noticed Kim muttering an _oh, shit_ and vaulting over the railing, landing beside Alix, ignoring the stairs completely.

Alix sat up, rubbing at her chest, indicating that she was winded. She coughed once, then a second time, and grabbed onto Kim’s shoulder with one hand, using him to haul herself up.

“Let’s try again,” she decided.

She did not try it again. The school might have given up on getting them to walk normally around the building, and not on their hands--Rose, surprisingly, was the one that did that--or on the railings, but Caline drew a line at doing it on roller skates. That was a death wish.

The class complained. At least, Alix and Kim did, their argument being that they did it at the museum all the time, and if Caline hadn’t interrupted, they would have been fine. Caline wasn’t having it. She informed them all that she did not need to die of a heart attack before she was married, which earned a few groans from Alix and Adrien, and surprisingly enough, Chloé.

It turned out the class had a YouTube account they shared, run by Max, and more recently, Alya. Caline discovered it because that’s where they uploaded their class-made film, and from there, she discovered plenty of new things to give her a heart attack.

They tried vlogging. Tried, as in, they would have random spurts of inspiration or remembrance, and upload four videos in as many days, and then not upload any of them for months. They had their class projects uploaded as well, alongside homework help videos that were mostly done by Max, and some study sessions that were remarkably well-recorded and organized.

There were some baking things from Marinette, a few music lessons from the kids that did that sort of thing, Alix had done a tour of the museum with her brother, and the group had filmed one of Kim’s swimming competitions, a video filled with references and shaky footage from laughter.

Yes. Alix did indeed rollerblade around the museum. Marinette forgot to take things out of the oven, which had resulted in a miniature fire at least once, Max had created a self-aware robot, Sabrina uploaded a few videos that were distinctly anti-establishment and the whole class had taken part in more than one riot in the past.

(It was very clear that Chloé’s father or the student’s parents had no idea what their children got up to. After the student-teacher interviews week finished, Caline discovered that they could not keep track of their kids in the least. That was probably why they’d been given cell phones earlier than most kids did; at least that way, you knew you could call them.)

Caline, after finishing watching all the videos (they were surprisingly addicting and well-made), took a few Advil, and passed out for eleven hours. She did not need the stress of her student’s antics on top of the stress of being a teacher.

She came into class the Monday after student-teacher interviews, to find them learning how to make slingshots out of pencils, pens, and hair elastics or elastic bands. They’d--Nathaniel, probably, considering how it was decorated--drawn a target on the whiteboard at the front of the room, and were taking turns standing at the back, seeing who could get the closest.

The moment she stepped in, it was a mad rush to get to their seats, at least half of them jumping or running over desks to get to their own, Max, who’d been at the front keeping track, swiped the two dry erasers across their blue, green, and red target, leaving white streaks through it, and sprinted back to his seat, while Lila, who’d been sitting at the front with crossed arms and a glare, glared some more.

Caline just sighed and took her spot at the front of the room.

At least they’d cleaned up somewhat.

A week later, there was an extra student.

Caline could have sworn that her class roster did not include a boy with teal hair, calm smile, Jagged Stone t-shirt, and a guitar case by his side, but there he was, sitting next to Nathaniel and looking utterly at ease in her classroom.

(Wasn’t that Juleka’s older brother, who was homeschooled? What was his name again? Luka?)

She decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

**Author's Note:**

> Phi -- Caline Bustier, in canon, has always been kind of a bland character. She's important, but she's not, ya know? This gives more insight to all the chaos the class gets up to, as well as how other people around them react to it. Plus, she's just really Done™ and I love that about her.
> 
> Jess -- I need more sleep.
> 
> Our server link >>> (we need friends) [Discord Server Link](https://discord.gg/gHwYjHufcz)
> 
> Talk to Phi >>> (she's usually good at faking sanity) [Phi/m3owww's Tumblr](https://m3owww.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Talk to Jess >>> (she needs interactions) [Jess/js71's Tumblr](https://js71.tumblr.com/)


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